Media Genealogy| An Archive for the Future: Paul N. Edwards on Technology, Historiography, Self and World

Abstract

In this conversation between Paul N. Edwards, professor in the School of Information and the Department of History at the University of Michigan, and Alexander Monea, doctoral candidate in the Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media program at North Carolina State University, Edwards addresses several concerns related to the history and critical analysis of media and technology. In particular, Edwards discusses archival methodology and interdisciplinarity in media studies, theories of technological momentum and infrastructural innovation, the political stakes of historiographic inquiry in terms of media and technology, the importance of the work of Michel Foucault, and the production of the self or subjectivization. He also discusses the contemporary implications of his earlier work on the history of computation and more recent work on climate science.